Septic State; Uncle Mike; History Repeating, But Faster; Funhouse or Madhouse; these articles have their titles and text in this color and are featured this week in -
 
Ender's Review of the Web
 

Web articles of likely interest to individualists found during the week of Feb. 22-28, 2004.

 
Comments and suggestions on the content and structure of this review are welcome. To accommodate such discussion I have created a Yahoo group for it. That group is ERevD: EnderReviewDiscussion. Feel free to jump in there at any time.
 
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Political Liberty
Articles showing a positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.
 
An Economist Against Bush and Kerry
        by Mark Thornton from LewRockwell.com
"Russo's strategy is to attack Bush and Kerry (BK) on issues where they are allies in destroying our freedom. BK supported the war on Iraq, the Patriot Act, huge increases in government spending and debt, and both oppose medical marijuana. BK supported gun control measures."
 
Save People - Not The System
        by Star Parker from Townhall.com
"It is a testament to the public relations skills of our political class that Americans believe that their Social Security taxes are actually some kind of investment in a fund that will pay them benefits at retirement."
 
The Rumsfeld-Bush Legal Black Hole
        by Nat Hentoff from The Village Voice
"The Supreme Court of the United States will decide, during the current term, whether the prisoners at Guantánamo have any recourse to our civilian courts to challenge the Bush-Rumsfeld power to keep them in a legal black hole."
 
Life in Amerika
Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on Liberty.
 
A phony war defeats free speech
        by Robyn E. Blumner from St. Petersburg Times
"Late last year, Istook added an amendment to the omnibus spending bill that cuts off $3.1-billion in federal funds from transit authorities nationwide if they accept ads for their bus, train or subway systems promoting the reform of drug laws."

Government Gets Fat Fighting Obesity 

        by Radley Balko from FOX News
"The war against obesity is the logical conclusion of our wars against certain drugs and, later, tobacco. The most personal of daily decisions -- what we put into our bodies -- is now a matter of 'public health'."
 
Injustice by Default
        by Matt Welch from Reason
"This stacked deck against accused dads has provoked a backlash movement, triggering 'paternity fraud' legislation and related legal challenges in more than a dozen states."
 
Ordered Liberty without the State
Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.
 
A Funhouse, or A Madhouse? 
        by Catfarmer from The Price Of Liberty
"Instead of tackling the responsibility of overcoming whatever evil spirit (lust, avarice, envy, sloth, violence, etc) lurks within us we grapple with distorted reflections mirrored by others, and in the political house of mirrors we find plenty of reflections to grapple with."
 
The Septic State
        by Tom Ender from Endervidualism
"Like a leaking septic tank the insidious effect of the State's aggression is similar to a bacterial infection -- sepsis. The State's aggression seeps throughout society like sewage infecting formerly healthy voluntary contractual regions and communicating the disease of coercion."
 
Uncle Mike
        by Joe Blow from Strike The Root
"She explained that her uncle Mike used to be a bounty hunter. They voiced their approval. Uncle Mike also used to work for the mafia. They roared even louder. Uncle Mike didn't pay attention to any laws, he simply ignored them all and went about his business as he saw fit. Now the class was standing and cheering. They all wanted to meet uncle Mike."
 
Spreading Decentralism
Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.
 
Social Power and the New Opposition
        by James Leroy Wilson from LewRockwell.com
"Social power is what we find when the State is relatively weak, which it had been for the most part from the Middle Ages until Bismarck's unified Germany. The power of other institutions: the Church, the family, social clubs, grow stronger by default."
 
The Daily Subversion
        by Nicholas Strakon from Strike The Root
"I'm not anybody's meek little serf, and I'm under no obligation to act like one in the presence of meek little serfs. Rather I feel an obligation to show the serfs I encounter how a free man reacts in the face of tyrannous insult."
 
The Unraveling of Pax Americana? 
        by Nebojsa Malic from Antiwar.com
"A retreat from Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia, or any place that has been trumpeted as a triumph of Empire's virtuous hegemony would obviously undermine the elaborate fiction that keeps the world in awe of United States' might, not ideals."
 
The New World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
 
Freedom v. The Pentagon in the U.S. Supreme Court 
        by Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Like it or not, the rights and freedoms of the American people turn on how the Supreme Court decides the Padilla, Hamdi, and Guantanamo cases."
 
Haiti: Resisting Imperial Temptation
        by Alan Bock from Antiwar.com
"The impulse to want to do something to improve the country is understandable. But a realistic assessment suggests that the United States is more likely to make conditions worse rather than better through a military intervention, even one designed (or intended) to ameliorate the lot of the Haitian people."
 
The Coming Implosion of the American Empire
        by Gary North from LewRockwell.com
"It will become extremely difficult from now on for any American President to invoke a looming military threat in order to justify military intervention by the United States. Clearly, President Bush will never be able to do this again, but I think it goes beyond him."
 
Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.
 
Dead Leaves and Dry Bones
        by William S. Lind from LewRockwell.com
"Their expertise is in becoming and remaining members of the Establishment. Their reality is court politics, not the outside reality of a Fourth Generation world or any other kind of world."
 
For liberty to live the GOP must die 
        by Jim Peron from Rational Review
"Libertarian Party candidates should concentrate on the fiscal issues in their campaign. They must hammer home the fact that Bush is a spendthrift of the worst sort. They must emphasize that Bush has increased socialised medicine, grabbed power for the federal government, overstepped the Constitution. In other words they should push issues which will attract Republican voters."
 
The Neo-Authoritarians
        by Justin Raimondo from Antiwar.com
"Echoing the left-liberal victimology he's supposed to be so opposed to, Horowitz and his campus minions are crying that their views are not automatically accepted and given credence -- and they want their 'rights' as an officially accredited 'minority group'!"
 
Spontaneous Order
Articles showing decentralized successes.
 
A Free Market Solution to Spam
        by Shyam Sunder from Cato Institute
"So is there an answer to the spam problem? Yes: Require spammers to pay recipients, through postage, to receive their spam. It's that simple, and it doesn't require massive government regulation."
 
Each One Teach One
        by Bob Jackson  from Strike The Root
"The cognitive dissonance that the truth creates in classical liberalism's opponents weakens their morale. Occasionally, it will even convert one or two of them.  For anarchists, objectivists, minarchists, libertarians and constitutionalists, this is an ideological fray in which we can close ranks on the same side."
 
A tug on donor hearts
        by Karen Francisco from FortWayne.com
"A new grassroots group suggests there's a better way. LifeSharers claims the best way to encourage donation is to give preferential treatment to those who agree to donate themselves. LifeSharers members offer first dibs on their organs to other network members."
 
Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles showing centrally planned disasters.
 
The Separation of School and State
        by  Wendy McElroy from ifeminists.net
"My purpose is not to dispute with parents who send their children to public schools. I believe the system is a brutal failure, but parents must decide for themselves. I advocate extending alternatives far beyond the typical private versus public school debate, and even beyond homeschooling."
 
Confessions of a Welfare Queen
        by John Stossel from Reason
"Occasionally, politicians are so eager to help their rich friends that they'll take your home to do it. The legal doctrine of 'eminent domain' (which means 'superior ownership') allows government officials to take possession of your property if they decide they need it for the greater good."
 
Congressional miracles
        by Walter E. Williams from Townhall.com
"Higher sugar costs make U.S. candy manufacturers less competitive in both domestic and world markets. Life Savers became more competitive simply by moving to Canada -- it saved itself a whopping $10 million dollars a year in sugar costs."
 
War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in society.
 
Hidden defense costs add up to double trouble
        by David R. Francis from Christian Science Monitor
"To measure actual spending by the United States on defense, take the federal budget number for the Pentagon and double it. That's the 'rule of thumb' advocated by economic historian Robert Higgs."
 
History Repeating, But Faster
        by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com
"War is to Washington what blood is to vampires. It engorges the government and drains the people. It turns the mountebanks of the legislature and the executive into statesmen."
 
Uncle Sugar
        by Chris Floyd from The Moscow Times
"As long as George keeps those colored lights going -- and the ex-CIA gang do their duty with the occasional bit of ooga-booga here and there -- Uncle Bill will keep gulping that 'threat level' gravy."
 
Bits of History
The Past seen with a fresh look.
 
"Road" Scholar
        by Edwin Feulner from The Heritage Foundation
"Hayek correctly predicted that surrendering personal freedom to the government wouldn't lead to greater security. It would lead merely to servitude - what Hayek called serfdom."
 
When the People were the Police 
        by Larry Pratt from NewsWithViews.com
"The history of the changing meaning of police is a history of the transformation of America from a society of limited government serving the people to our present plight where the people serve the government. "
 
The Real Churchill
        by Adam Young from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"With his lack of principles and scruples, Churchill was involved in one way or another in nearly every disaster that befell the 20th century."
 
War and Peace
Articles showing the nature of War.
 
Brutus on the Evils of Standing Armies
        by Laurence M. Vance from LewRockwell.com
"One subject that Brutus speaks on at length is the evils of standing armies. In four of his sixteen essays (numbers 1, 8, 9, 10), he explains how the establishment and maintenance of standing armies breeds fear, is destructive to liberty, and should be viewed as a scourge to a country instead of a benefit."
 
What Bush Did Wrong during the War
        by Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Any society dedicated to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, if it is to have any integrity, must acknowledge that the draft was criminal and that avoidance was justified."
 
Bring them home 
        by Vox Day from WorldNetDaily.com
"Stationing troops in 144 of the 191 U.N. member states around the world has not brought peace. History proves that no utopian vision, however sweeping, will ever bring a permanent peace."
 
Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out from the crowd.
 
Philosopher - Arthur Schopenhauer : Feb. 22, 1788
        from Wikipedia
"Schopenhauer described himself as a proponent of limited government. What was essential, he thought, was that the state should 'leave each man free to work out his own salvation', and so long as government was, thus, limited he would 'prefer to be ruled by a lion than one of [his] fellow rats' --i.e., a monarch."
 
Economist - Carl Menger : Feb 23, 1840
        by Joseph T. Salerno from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Despite the many illustrious forerunners in its six-hundred year prehistory, Carl Menger (1840-1921) was the true and sole founder of the Austrian school of economics proper."
 
Playwright - Mary Coyle Chase : Feb. 25, 1907
        by Marlo M. Ihler from Bard.org
"In 1942 she began working on Harvey, a play about a friendly inebriate named Elwood P. Dowd and his invisible companion, a six-foot one-and-a-half inch white rabbit."
 
Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.
 
Some reviews of The Passion of the Christ
        Gary North from LewRockwell.com - http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north251.html
        Jesse Walker from Reason - http://www.reason.com/links/links022604.shtml
        Joe Sobran from Sobrans - http://www.sobran.com/columns/2004/040224.shtml
 
Interviews: Viggo Mortensen on Hidalgo 
        from Coming Soon!
"The American cavalryman and his horse, Hidalgo, ran the greatest long-distance horse race ever run. Hopkins, once billed as the greatest rider the West had ever known, and his trusty mustang pitted themselves against world-renowned Arabian horses and wily Bedouin riders, who were determined to keep them from finishing the race."
 
Freedom Book of the Month for February, 2004
        Prometheus Rebounds by Bill Danks reviewed by Don L. Tiggre from Free-Market.Net
"The title says the book is a fable of hope, and it is, but it's also a basic introduction to the freedom philosophy. That introduction is accomplished in a warm and entertaining style that is a joy to read."
 
The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons, parodies, food, popular music and other things to amuse.
 
With all due respect, yer a Ding Dong
        by Dave Barry from The Miami Herald
"It is time for another rendition of 'Ask Mister Language Person,' the only grammar column approved for internal use by the Food and Drug Administration...."
 
Massachusetts Supreme Court Orders All Citizens To Gay Marry
        from The Onion
"Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 5-2 Monday in favor of full, equal, and mandatory gay marriages for all citizens. The order nullifies all pre-existing heterosexual marriages and lays the groundwork for the 2.4 million compulsory same-sex marriages that will take place in the state by May 15." Satire.
 
The All New 2004 Nader Candidate
        by Mark Fiore from The Village Voice
Flash animated cartoon
 
Deep Thought
Scientific and scholarly studies, philosophical essays, in-depth and longer articles.
 
Economics, Philosophy, and Politics
        by Hans-Hermann Hoppe from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"...[T]he greatest hope for liberty comes from the small countries: from Monaco, Andorra, Liechtenstein, even Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bermuda, etc.; and as a liberal one should hope for a world of tens of thousands of such small independent entities."
 
Egoism and Anarchy
        by Roderick Long from Strike The Root
"I've long held that Greek philosophy and modern libertarianism are natural allies, tailor-made for each other -- not because they are similar but because through their very differences each can supply the deficiencies of the other. "
 
Immanuel Kant: Democratic Warmonger?
        by Joseph R. Stromberg from LewRockwell.com
"It is true, of course, that Kant is not the clearest fellow. He works on many levels at once. He focuses on the ways in which our practical reason allows us to arrive at transcendental moral truths, such as the Categorical Imperative -- the injunction never to use a fellow human being solely as a means."
 
Miscellany
Articles not easily classified.
 
Beyond Black History
        by Anthony B. Bradley from Acton Institute
"In light of the contemporary absence of significant institutional barriers, black progress is largely independent of the retrograde attitudes of a few white racists. The out-dated approaches of the 1960s keep many blacks from seeing this new reality."
 
The Rule of Law - In Classical Liberalism & Libertarianism
        by Tibor R. Machan from LewRockwell.com
"Classical liberals and libertarians, especially those who admire the works of the famous legal theorists and economist F. A. Hayek, are fond of pointing out that a free society requires the rule of law."
 
Watering The Tree
        by Russell Madden from Russell Madden's Home Page
"Suffering is not noble. Suffering is merely a fact of life that must be acknowledged and dealt with. Most of us would decry zoo-raised animals abruptly thrust into the wilderness to fend for themselves. People deserve at least as much consideration."
 
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